OT - No child deserves to die because of a coward.

[Jason Weiser]

Originally Posted by dragoon500ly

Words cannot begin to express my horror and rage at this senseless slaughter of innocents. There can never be an adequate explanation of why someone would believe that this would make things in their world right. Nothing can ever justify the murder of children.

That this individual had severe mental issues cannot be denied, the question is why these issues were not addressed in time to prevent this will be endlessly debated. But the killer has achieved one goal, he will now be remembered.

There are blogs out on the net right now, talking about how "cool" this killer is for "doing it to the man" and "he should have killed more of the little piggies."

Our society has reached a new low. And I fear for that society.

Please god,
Tell me this isn't true. Having dealt with someone who had mental issues. Without turning this into a political discussion on mental health issues in this country? I can say, the mental health delivery system in this nation stinks...hard.

On the other hand? I work for a Second Amendment advocacy group. I believe strongly in the rights for Americans to possess firearms. Do I think the gun control side believe what they believe honestly? Yes. I also disagree with them wholeheartedly. Trouble is? A lot of wrong headed folks on both sides are going to say and do some very dumb things in the coming days.

Meanwhile? 20 kids are dead. And I know a lot of us wish we'd been there to do something, anything to stop this asshole. I know I do, and I am the least trained person here.

[Legbreaker]

From where I sit halfway around the planet, the whole issue seems to be devolving into a gun control fight with virtually no attention on mental health.
Am I surprised? Hell no!
Why? Because it's a LOT cheaper to play around with existing firearms laws, get the police/ATF/etc to come down hard on a few people than it is to make effective changes to mental (in fact all) health systems and make them WORK.
ALL sides of politics are equally unlikely in my view to do what NEEDS to be done because actually dealing with a broken system requires money and political backbone.

So we can all expect more instances similar to this one in the future - at least until a few centuries have passed and there's a half decent mental health system...

And this goes not just for the US, but here in Australia as well.

[Rockwolf66]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

From where I sit halfway around the planet, the whole issue seems to be devolving into a gun control fight with virtually no attention on mental health.
Am I surprised? Hell no!
Why? Because it's a LOT cheaper to play around with existing firearms laws, get the police/ATF/etc to come down hard on a few people than it is to make effective changes to mental (in fact all) health systems and make them WORK.
ALL sides of politics are equally unlikely in my view to do what NEEDS to be done because actually dealing with a broken system requires money and political backbone.

So we can all expect more instances similar to this one in the future - at least until a few centuries have passed and there's a half decent mental health system...

And this goes not just for the US, but here in Australia as well.

I must share this Australian wisdome to Facebook due to it's level of Awesomeness.

[pmulcahy11b]

I'm sort of changing my mind about mental illness getting more attention. Maybe the health care industry (including Medicare, Tricare, and the VA) will have to pay attention to the ugly truth that 72% of of mental health patients receive no care or are undercared for (I'm in that boat).